4. Be serious. Unless they’re joking around. If I want a straight answer, I want a straight answer.

5. Ask questions. Nothing is more awkward than saying “oh yeah I want to be an accountant when I grow up” and having them not respond because you didn’t ask “what about you?” or because, really, what can you say to that?

6. Talk about exotic places. And what you would do if you live there. I don’t know about you, but if I lived in London and had unlimited cash (because my cohort in crime hunted down a leprechaun [to have as a pet] in Ireland and took money from it – uh, haven’t had this conversation before, nope…), I would definitely buy a truck-load of Maltesers and Toblerone.

7. Pretend like you’re talking with a friend. It’s much easier to talk about random stuff (like making London guards laugh and re-naming Jamaica “JAMaica”) than to freak out about saying the wrong thing or not.

Today I went to a super amazing town near my house to get (a) fabric for my pillows (b) BRITISH CANDY OMGASDFGHJKL and (c) gluten free muffins – my mom’s doing.

I made some super cute pillows using some old pillows that we had on hand (shown in the picture) and a new pillow-form. I used the toaster fabric that I got a while ago and made shorts out of, and some stripy fabric, Paris fabric, and typewriter fabric. Yay!

Maltesers yay!!! (cuz you know… danisnotonfire said they were good so I had to get some… okay that’s an understatement. He didn’t talk about them… he poured a whole box of them all over himself in one of his videos)

Until next time, Em 🙂

P.S. ~ I totally forgot to post my weird dream this morning! I was going to lunch at my school and there was bubble tea (sometimes we have it, but it sounds more exciting than it actually is – it’s just really thick smoothie with tapioca bubbles – not the real thing), and this time they had jelly (yay! no more tapioca!) and I scooped a lot into my little cup and went over to get my smoothie put in, but my eyes wouldn’t open (it was actually really scary – it’s like when you’re super sleepy and your eyes legit can’t open) and so I kept moving the cup around and couldn’t get any of the smoothie. Then I walked down to the place where I eat lunch with my friends and THERE WAS A GREEN BABY RAM. Like, wtf?! And my friend petted it. And then I went to English class where I have a super scary teacher (who is actually really nice, but she just has an angry tone of voice even when she’s happy) and I couldn’t keep my eyes open so she thought I was sleeping and I got in trouble. Yep.

Today I’m having a serious craving for chocolate covered shortbread cookies. Sadly, though, we don’t have butter. Sigh. But then I remembered, what about mug cake? It doesn’t require any butter, and it’s super delicious…. so I decided to stop by Ariel’s blog and check out the recipe that she posted a while ago… but I decided to change it up a bit.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup of flour

3 tbs of sugar

2 tbs of cocoa powder

Half a ripe banana, mashed

3 tbs of milk

3 tbs of oil

a pinch of salt

a little vanilla

15 or so chocolate chips

Recipe:

Combine ingredients in a mug and stir for a minute or so, making sure all the ingredients are mixed – you don’t want to end up with lumps of flour (uh, I wouldn’t know this from personal experience. Nope.) Next, microwave for about two and a half minutes – I have a 1150 watt microwave and it worked perfectly. Let cool for a few minutes and enjoy!

I also made some bags to package the gifts in – and for family gifts also. It was super convenient that Green Club at my school (which I co-lead) had a sewing party today, because I got to make 9 bags today. Hehe.

I’m using the maroon shapes bag, the holiday lights bag, and the green holiday decorations bag.

Also, my dad got me some new tea! This is one of my very favorite teas, Market Spice Cinnamon Orange Black Tea. It’s super cheap when you buy loose leaf, which is great. I found this tea when one of my mom’s friends introduced me to it. Ever since, I’ve been in love with it.

A few days ago, my friend walked into school with a steaming Starbucks cup (love those cups, btw. I wish they had tumblers with the same designs as the cups. Sadly they only have mugs… and not very cute ones this year)… of course I had to ask what she was drinking. She replied, “a peppermint steamed milk”. To be honest, I’m kind of a tea girl. But hey, when I’m confronted with a delicious mug of flavored milk, I just have to drink it. Which is why I decided to make my own version of the delicious drink.